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Harriet cleared her throat. 'Yes.'
'My father is working. Why do you not come to the lodge and meet Louise?'
Harriet's heart sank. 'I can't.'
'You will not see my father, I promise. They are harvesting the fruit and he is
away all day.'
Harriet sought for an excuse. 'Why aren't you helping him?'
Paul grimaced. 'This is my how do you say rest day? Besides, working in
the fields is not good for my hands.'
Harriet determinedly got into the car. 'I'm sorry, Paul, but I must get back.
Susan will be wondering where I am.' She slammed the door behind her, and
then wound down the window as the stifling atmosphere inside was airless.
'Goodbye.'
Paul stepped aside and raised one hand in salute, and with a feeling of escape
she drove away. But the boy's face reflected in the rear-window was
thoughtful, and she guessed, with a feeling of unease, that she had not seen
the last of him.
Curiosity engulfed her as she drove along. He never mentioned his mother,
or the possibility of his having brothers or sisters or both. The only person
apart from his father she had heard him mention was his great-grandmother,
and she must be very old. Andre's grandmother she had to be eighty, at
least, and yet she seemed an important person in the household. Of course,
French households were not like English ones. In this country, the old were
revered and respected, their opinions sought and valued, not ridiculed and
dismissed as being of no account. Experience meant something, here, and
perhaps that accounted for Paul's obvious affection for his
great-grandmother. But what about his mother? It should also be
remembered that in this country, it was commonplace for a man to have a
mistress. With painful insight Harriet had to admit she was curious ...
There was no sign of Susan as she drove down the lane, and her nerve-ends
tingled. She had been away only a little over an hour; surely nothing
untoward could have happened in that time. And yet Susan invariably came
out to meet her, and she obviously hadn't.
Stopping the car, she thrust open her door and got out, without bothering to
collect her basket from the back seat. She walked quickly up the path and
into the house calling: 'Susan! Susan, where are you?'
She had barely identified some horrifying spots on the stone flags of the
kitchen floor as being blood when she heard a groan. It came from the salon,
and she crossed the floor on unsteady legs, stifling her anxiety. In the
doorway to the small parlour she halted, and then gasped in dismay. Susan
was lying on the chaise- longue, her face as white as a sheet, while a seeping
red stain from a carelessly-tied bandage below her knee was rapidly
colouring the faded rose-pink velvet.
'Susan!' Harriet quelled the nausea that rose up inside her at the sight of so
much blood. 'Oh, my God!' , Her legs felt weak and she grasped the doorpost
to support herself. For a moment the room spun dizzily about-her, as the
effects of shock and too much sun combined to make her giddy.
'Harry oh, Harry, I'm so glad you've come,' Susan gulped and burst into
tears. 'I've been so so frightened !'
Harriet left the doorway to go across to her, comforting the girl as best she
could while her eyes took in the possible extent of her injury. How had it
happened? It seemed obvious that somehow Susan had gashed her leg. But
when? And how deeply? And with what?
'Darling,' she exclaimed at last, when it seemed that Susan was going to cry
for ever. The exertion was not good for her, and Harriet had to find out what
she had done. 'Come on, love, tell me what happened.'
Susan gulped again and sniffed, and Harriet handed her a handkerchief to
blow her nose, realising with an increasing sense of urgency that something
had to be done, and quickly. Susan was losing far too much blood.
'It it was the scythe,' Susan said at last, horrifyingly. 'I I was trying to
finish cutting the grass. You know the grass that Paul left...'
Harriet could feel a sense of panic rising inside her. The scythe! Any
accident was bad enough, and here they were, miles from a hospital, and no
doctor that she knew of. Something had to be done, and fast, but what? Think
she told herself fiercely, think! Behave calmly! Don't let Susan see that
you're going to pieces!
Pressing her trembling hands together, she knelt down on the floor and
giving Susan what she hoped was an encouraging smile, she gently drew
away the home-made bandage and exposed the wound. It was worse than
anything she had imagined. A jagged gash revealed the whiteness of bone
beneath tumescent, bloody flesh. Inches long, it obviously needed stitching,
and the chances of infection from a garden implement were always present.
'I'm going to have to apply a tourniquet, Sue,' she said in a voice slightly
higher than her normal one. 'We've got to stop the bleeding right now, and
then we've got to see a doctor, right?'
She was trying to sound cheerful and competent, but she was aware that her
words came out with little conviction. She was not naturally shocked by the
sight of blood, but she had never had to deal with anything like this before,
and even the idea of the tourniquet was gleaned from hearsay rather than
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